Europe vs. Facebook Inc (FB) Class Action Joined By 11000+

Europe Vs. Facebook Inc privacy lawsuit filed on Friday by Austrian Max Schrems gained support of more than 11,000 complainants, who also joined the campaign, according to a report from TechCrunch on Monday. The lawsuit accuses the social networking site of breaking into a number of data privacy laws.

More Facebook users joining

Schrems has appealed to the Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) users outside the United States and Canada to join the lawsuit. He is claiming damages of 500 euros or $670 per user, who supports the cause.

“It is much more than we expected,” Schrems said of the number of people who have joined so far.

Schrems, a law student, has alleged Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) previously as well and is more popularly known as “the thorn in Facebook’s side.” He demanded the company to provide all information on him and received details in 1,222 pages as a response.

The law student said that users from Austria and Germany top the number of complainants jointly with 50% of the backing coming from these regions. Other regions from where the complaint received high backing are Croatia, the Netherlands, Finland and the UK. Apart from Europe, 23 people from South Africa and 122 people from Australia have supported the case.

Users are free to support the case at no financial risk because even if they lose the financier will pay all the legal fees, and in the case of a win he or she will take 20% of the damages earned.

It’s not all about money

A compensation of $670 is low when compared to the $1,000 and $2,700 paid for damages. Schrems says the amount has been decided so that it hurts Facebook, and at the same time do not make the case all about money.

At present, paying compensation to every user that backed the lawsuit will cost Facebook $7.37 million. Schrems has filed a suit against Facebook Ireland, and the hearing will be conducted in Vienna, Austria. As per the Austrian law, the interested parties can assign claims to a single person. Schrems filed the case in Austria because Ireland is believed to be very liberal to the social media company’s business processes.

To join the group, Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) users should sign in with their credentials to authenticate that they have an account and are thus eligible to join. Thereafter some additional details are required such as address, birth date and a scanned government issued identity document such as a passport.